


Meet You All the Way

by thebluecardigan



Series: Neither Wonder Nor Blame [3]
Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Genre: Background Dysfunctional Bennet Family, F/M, Modern AU, jane has anxiety, teacher!Jane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 07:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebluecardigan/pseuds/thebluecardigan
Summary: "It's not that Jane couldn't get a date if she wanted to."In which an architect and a maths teacher discover mutual (highly technical) interests and both have a few things to work through.





	Meet You All the Way

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my modern London AU. Title from Toto's Rosanna

Jane Bennet had to sprint across the platform to catch the train to back to London, partially because her mother liked to drag out family dinner and partially because with the way her father drove she’d be better off walking. She’d never acknowledge it, but Lizzy wasn’t the only one who noticed these things. Jumping on the train and running up the steps, she was happy enough to have made it that she wasn’t paying any attention to certain elements of her surroundings. Namely, the fact that trains you’ve just barely caught have a tendency to start moving not long after you’ve gotten on.

The train jolted into motion, and Jane, caught off guard, fell backwards, tried to catch herself on the back of a seat, and was only successful in diverting her motion into another seat. An occupied one. She stood up, gasping “Sorry! I am so sorry! That was terribly clumsy—“

The seat’s occupant was laughing and shook his head. “Don’t worry, really. No harm done.” Jane was considering where the nearest private place to die of mortification might be when he followed that with, “This seat’s taken, but the other isn’t,” and nodded to the seat beside him.

“Oh, I couldn’t impose.”

“No really, please do!”

Of all the people to have this interaction with, he was certainly polite, friendly, and attractive, and nothing seemed off enough to make her demur. “Well, if you don’t mind.” She stepped around him and sat down almost gracefully in the window seat.

The man stuck out his hand, “I’m Charlie Banerjee.”  
“Jane Bennet.”

…

It’s not that Jane couldn’t get a date if she wanted to. (She knew her mother had started to wonder.) It’s only, she wasn’t terribly optimistic about things working out. The last serious relationship she had was a boy in her first year at Oxford. He wrote her songs and put grainy videos of them on Youtube that involved almost as much hair flipping as strumming. He also dumped her just before finals. (Two years later, knee deep in a poetry analysis seminar, Lizzy went back to those videos and ripped the lyrics apart piece by piece in a Google doc she shared with Jane.) Even though Jane managed her exams, she found herself thinking about that month when a guy started to get close. So she didn’t let them.

Being somewhat shy was a fair enough place to start, and plenty of boys lost interest when they figured out that the demure schoolteacher had a first in Maths from Oxford. Add in long days at work and a dysfunctional, demanding family, and she could tell herself that she wasn’t pushing people away; it was just circumstance.

Just circumstance was that she fell into Charlie’s lap on the train and he managed to get her talking for the whole forty-five minutes home. When they got off, he asked for her number and she took his phone and typed it in and checked twice to make sure she didn’t switch any of the digits. Their hands brushed as she gave it back and he promised to be in touch soon—for a moment she thought he was about to go in for a hug, but he must have decided against it, because he just nodded, told her again it was a pleasure to meet her, and walked away. She realized quickly that they were going in the same direction, but she needed a moment to collect herself anyways, so she went and bought a cup of tea before heading down to the tube. The whole interaction had left her feeling dizzy and a little out of control—not that Charlie was pushing, just that she wasn’t quite used to this. 

She told herself that she wouldn’t say a word to anyone until at least the third date (if they made it that far), but that night Charlie texted her:

"Hi Jane! Glad to meet you today. Are you free in the evening, day after tomorrow? Would like to go out if you’re interested. —Charlie"

Jane was halfway through tapping out an affirmative when she realized she really did care what happened with this one. She panicked, and called Lizzy. (Jane had forgotten it was 3 a.m. Chicago time. A sleep-dazed Lizzy was neither very pleased nor very helpful.)

"Hey! That would be lovely! I’m free after six"

Two minutes later, her lock screen lit up:

"Fantastic! Can I pick you up?"

She thought for a moment before she replied:

"I’m not sure when I’ll get off work… could we meet up somewhere around Notting Hill Gate?"

"Sure! I know this great little Italian place near the tube station"

"Excellent :)"

…

On the first date, Charlie met Jane coming out of the tube station and told her she looked pretty. Given that their train conversation hadn’t gone much past the weather and the countryside north of London, she found the cynical side of herself spiraling into doubts about the superficiality of the whole enterprise. Then she mentioned working later then normal, he asked her what she did, and she said she was a teacher.

“What do you teach?”

“Why don’t you guess?”

He gave her a long look across the table. “I’m going to get this wrong and it’ll be insulting somehow.”

“Well, now I really must hold you to it.”

He didn’t guess A-level Maths. He started with primary school art class. When she corrected him, though, his face lit up. “Really? Brilliant! That was one of my favourite subjects in school.”

The waitress interrupted Charlie’s story about the first time he used applied mathematics as an architect to take their order, and by the time their food came, Jane had loosened up enough to tell some of her funnier stories about teaching calculus to teenagers. The more Jane talked, the more Charlie directed the subject of the conversation towards her, until they were sitting in the restaurant behind their empty plates as Jane recounted a theorem she had come across in a journal recently. Either her date had ulterior motives and a great deal of patience, or he was really quite invested in what she had to say. When they parted ways, he asked to see her home and she shook her head and insisted that it wasn’t necessary. Saying goodbye, he started to lean in, but she didn’t have to turn her head to the side for his kiss to land on her cheek.

After the second date, she told a fully-conscious Lizzy.

On the third date, he asked if he could kiss her on her doorstep at the end of the night. She didn’t have to turn her head for a different reason.

Maybe, Jane started to think, this was going to mean something after all.

…

They’d been dating for a month when Jane met Charlie’s family. “Not to rush things along.” He insisted. “It’s just my sisters and my best friend, really. Darcy’s been asking about you.”

“I thought your sisters were Caro and Lisa?”

“Oh, no, Darcy is my friend. It’s his last name.”

They went to dinner at a restaurant expensive enough to make her vaguely uncomfortable from the moment she walked in the door. Charlie seemed to notice she was uncomfortable, but attributed it to meeting new people—he squeezed her hand and whispered “I swear they don't bite” in her ear as the waiter led them to the table.

They didn’t bite—it was just that she felt like Caro saw how she was scanning the price tags on the menu for something that wasn’t an unholy expense. When Jane explained she was a teacher, she could see Lisa eyeing her dress and cardigan as if the meager salary could be the only excuse for them. Charlie took Jane’s hand and she reminded herself that it was lack of serotonin and that her perception was skewed. When Darcy asked Jane where she came from, she decided to explain his stiffness as shyness and to be warm enough that he could feel at ease.

At the end of the night, she told Charlie she was tired instead of inviting him up. She went inside and laid on her bed and tried to practice breathing exercises until she was calm enough to sleep.

…

Three months after Charlie and Jane started dating, Lizzy arrived home unexpectedly in a flurry of bags and limbs. (Jet lag, they had long ago discovered, wreaked havoc on Lizzy’s coordination more than anything.) Jane didn’t notice her sister’s homecoming— she was having friends over for dinner, which meant about as much noise as a half dozen people could be expected to make. In the kitchen, Charlie was teaching his girlfriend how to make samosas and Elinor and Charlotte were laughing as their friend Jane, the expert baker, had considerably greater difficulty with fried food. Darcy disappeared to answer the bell when Charlie laughingly informed him that the hostess was busy burning dinner, and the next thing Jane knew, her little sister’s arms were tucked around her so tightly she couldn’t quite breathe. “You’ll set a place for me now, won’t you?”

When she’d disentangled from Jane, Elizabeth gave Elinor and Charlotte each a kiss on the cheek, ignored Darcy, and stuck out her hand to Charlie. “I hear you’re the one who’s making my sister have a social life?”

“Only so far as she’ll let me.” Charlie laughed. 

Lizzy nodded. “Don’t take this one home, Janey, he seems nice.”

Jane tried to act like she and her sister considered this a joke.

Charlie finished up the food on the stove while Darcy laid the table and Elinor poured drinks. Lizzy’s arms found their way back around Jane, and in the hustle and bustle of a very small kitchen they spoke into each other’s ears like they had when they were little girls.

…

Jane didn’t see Charlie quite as often when her sister was home—neither of them knew where Lizzy’s next long-term assignment would be, and they wanted to catch up on time spent together. Often enough, though, they would have Charlie over (occasionally with Darcy, so Lizzy could hate her dinner party rather than be a potentially awkward third wheel). The school year was wrapping up, and often as not date nights were a bottle of wine and a pile of papers to mark until Jane fell asleep on the corner of the couch or Charlie’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said one night as he roused her to send her to bed. “I know I’ve been awfully dull lately.”

“I know it comes with the seasons.”

“You’re terribly patient. When I’ve got my marks in, maybe we’ll slip away to the beach for a weekend.”

“Are you quite sure you wouldn’t fall asleep there too?” He teased, and Jane teasingly smacked his arm before relaxing back against his side.

“How can I help it when you’re such a nice pillow?”

…

They didn’t have a holiday by the sea. Charlie dumped her over coffee and croissants at a Prêt with tables in the basement. Something sick and twisted inside Jane felt that this was appropriate, because if the world was right there would be tea and scones and sunshine.

She knew when they met out front that something was wrong, but she waited until they had food and sat down. “Rough day at work?”

“I think we need to talk.” She looked up sharply, but didn’t say anything. He ran his hand through his hair and looked away. “I’ve got an assignment in Manchester. It’s for a smaller branch of the firm, but I’ll have more seniority. It’ll be at least six weeks, but I don’t know if I’ll be staying there after.” He stopped and looked up at her, and she suddenly had the feeling that the situation was out of her hands. “Look, I know we’re not terribly serious, and I don’t think it would be fair to drag things on like that.”

Jane took a deep breath. “You’re breaking up with me?” She felt very cold and somewhat dizzy, but the words came out calm and steady.

“Jane—“

“Go on.”

“You’re not—“

“Charles, please finish what you were saying.”

“I really do think the world of you, and in another circumstance…but I think it would be best if we ended things for now.”

Jane stood up. “Thanks for the coffee. I hope you have a lovely time in Manchester.” Charlie appeared to be saying something else, but the inside of her head was pounding and she really did not want to vomit on the pavement—let alone in front of him. She walked out of the restaurant, took the tube home, and curled up with her back to the inside of her front door. 

An hour later she called Lizzy. “I had been trying to figure out how to tell him I loved him.”

…

In the weeks that followed, Jane decided that a few things needed to change. Her classroom remained more or less the same (although she put more time and energy into the bulletin boards than she really ought to have), but she cut her hair, bought two new sweaters, and decided that she ought to see a therapist.

Lizzy was around for the first month, watching how much Jane ate, making her put down her grading and sleep, and convincing her to go out and have a good time. When her little sister left (this time only for three weeks), Jane was already in the habit of being functional and steady, if not happy. She spent a lot of time practicing breathing exercises.

It hurt for longer than it should have, Jane thought, given that it was a four month relationship and was taking almost as long to really get over, but by the time Lizzy came back she felt steadier on her feet. She was almost learning to think of the breakup as a good thing—the moment that finally pushed her to try to work through some things and make her life better on her terms. She couldn’t think of Charlie without some regret, but the knowledge that she was a healthier person now went a long way to making it better.

…

Nine months after Jane met Charlie and five months after they broke up, she received a text.

"Hi Jane, I’m back in London for the foreseeable future. I’d like to see you if that’s all right?"

Jane dropped her phone. She closed her eyes for a moment, then picked it up and squinted at the screen, not sure if she was reading right. 

"Hi. I’m a bit busy with work at the moment, sorry."

She typed and erased the “sorry” three times, not certain if it was better to soften the message or forgo an apology she wasn’t sure she owed him. She sent it with the apology.

"No problem, so sorry to bother you."

That seemed strange. Not that Charlie had ever been pushy when she didn’t want him to be, but normally if she was busy he had tried to find a work-around. Although, she had been pretty clear that she wanted him to leave her alone. And really, the last thing she needed was to stir up the mess of feelings she had more or less resolved.

After two days of thinking about it more than she probably should have, Jane decided that she’d been too harsh on Charlie.

"It turns out I’m free Saturday afternoon, if you’re interested."

Within thirty seconds, Charlie had texted back:

"Fantastic!  
"Do you have a preference where? Or we could do that café near your flat?  
"I’d be glad to pick you up if that wouldn’t make you uncomfortable"

…

Jane wore her new, slightly intense lipstick and put more time, thought, and effort into her outfit than she had done in a while. She also told herself it was nothing important. For all she knew, he just wanted to say hi.

She walked into the café to find Charlie there already, with something suspiciously like her typical order sitting in front of him. He looked up and smiled at her, standing up to greet her as she walked over. “Jane! It’s lovely to see you.”

She tried to breathe and ignore the spinning feeling in her head. “I was surprised to hear from you,” she began as they sat down.

“I just moved back to London this week, actually! It’s been a bit of a whirlwind but I’m really glad the transfer went through.”

“It’s nice that worked out.”

“Yeah, and I, uh, realized pretty recently that I made a mistake and I’m in a place where maybe I could try to fix it.”

“That sounds like a good habit to be in.”

“Jane—“

“If you’re going to say something, I’d much rather you be frank.”

“That’s…um, yeah, that’s fair.” He took a deep breath and ruffled his hair—at the rate he was going, it would be standing up straight before they left. “I really shouldn’t have broken up with you. It was stupid and I’ve been regretting it more or less ever since.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I didn’t think you were as interested as I was.”

Jane nearly dropped her drink. “I’m sorry, I need a moment to process that.” Charlie, obliging as ever, stopped talking. She took a minute, then inhaled. “You didn’t think talking to me would be a good way to fix it?”

“Like I said, I was being stupid.”

“So you’re here to talk about it?”

“To apologize. At least.”

“That’s kind of you.” Jane’s chest hurt and she was struggling to take deep breaths. If she couldn’t get herself under wraps, she’d have to leave soon.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you, and that I left.”

Jane nodded. “That’s very much appreciated, I’m sure. I’m sorry, I’m not feeling quite well.”

“You’re pale—do you need some water or something?”

“No, I think I just need to go. I’m sorry, your apology was very nice. I just don’t feel well.”

“Can I walk you home, or would that make it worse.”

“I’m just around the corner. I’ll be fine.” She picked up her jacket and left. If she could just make it inside before she started to cry…

She would have made it, except she had left her handbag at the table, and was now stranded outside without keys or phone. She managed to get buzzed in, but found herself stuck out in the stairwell when she couldn’t hold it together anymore.

That was how Charlie found her when he came up five minutes later, her purse in hand. “Jane, I’m so sorry to bother you, I just worried when you left this—“ He came the rest of the way around the landing to see her sitting in front of her door, knees up to her chest as she shook and tears ran down her face. For a moment, he stood dumbstruck, then rallied. “Hey, let’s get you inside.” She bobbed her head, and he unlocked the door and helped her up and onto the sofa inside. “Do I need to call someone?” 

Jane shook her head. “No, it’s fine.”

“You don’t look all right.” He passed her a box of Kleenex.

“Anxiety attack. I’ll be fine.”

“Can I get you anything? Do you want me to leave?”

“No, you're fine. Overreacted.”

“I’ll put the kettle on, yeah?”

“That’s kind.”

“Well, I feel a little responsible for this.” He was navigating her kitchen like he’d learned it by heart, and they both knew that he had.

“Don’t. It’s just a spiral.” Jane felt herself surfacing, and with that, the realization that Charlie had just seen her completely fall apart. Somewhere in the back of her head, she rattled off a string of curses. She wiped her still-watery eyes and stood up. “I’ll just go wash my face.”

She came back not quite ten minutes later feeling more like herself, and found Charlie waiting with two cups of tea. “I didn’t know if you’d want cream tea or chamomile.” She thanked him, and he ran his hand through his hair. “I really don’t want to upset you, so if I need to go I’ll go.”

She held back the “no” that rose instantly to her lips. “I don’t mind. Either way.”

“Are you sure?”

Jane shut her eyes, silent for a moment before quietly responding.“I left because I didn’t want you to see this.”

“I’m sorry I intruded.”

“No, it was an accident. You were trying to help.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah. I am.” She took a deep breath. “Definitely not the first time this has happened.”

“I don’t mean to pry—“

He’d seen enough, certainly. “I had these while we were dating. And before that. And some other stuff to work through. I didn’t want you to know.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t sure at first, but I thought we had something good. I didn’t want to screw it up.”

“Well, I did a bang-up job of that myself.”

“Look, you should have talked to me. But it might have helped if I’d talked to you.”

She invited him to sit on her sofa, and he took the cup of tea she wasn’t drinking. He told her about Manchester and missing her and not feeling like he was good enough. She told him about parents and sisters and running off to London. He had never been meant to know, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the worst thing.

…

Charlie left early that night, and in spite of herself Jane wondered if he had come to his senses about her being a mess and run away. 

Two days later, he texted her in the evening: 

"In the neighborhood. All right if I drop by?"

Ten minutes after she agreed to it, he showed up on her doorstep with a thermos of chai and a tupperware of still-warm samosas.

After two weeks, she called Lizzy. 

“I think we’ll be all right after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and a huge shoutout to Laure001 for the prompt! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr with questions/prompts/ etc.! @elinordashwoodbutwithmoresnark


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